


you can hold on or let go

by Ahigheroctave



Series: If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind? [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, King Gendry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahigheroctave/pseuds/Ahigheroctave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bull kissed the little bird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can hold on or let go

**Author's Note:**

> For un_love_you's prompt: Always wondered what this'd be like. Spoilers for the books, or most of them. Will almost definitely be AU at some point.

He kissed her because he could.

He’d always wondered what it might be like to kiss a lady, back when he was just another bastard blacksmith. He had heard of the maids from all over Westeros that had lined up to kiss that pinched-face little frog, Joffrey, and squirmed with jealousy. He’d always gotten enough attention from girls, but they were all of low-birth like him, daughters of bakers and serving maidens. Ladies were different though, he knew from the few that set foot in Tobho Mott’s forge. Ladies were crisp, embroidered dresses in brilliant blues or reds deep as blood. Ladies were skin soaped so thoroughly he could smell their cleanliness across from his place by the armory’s fires. Ladies do not kiss armorer’s apprentices who don't know their father’s name.

He let his hand linger gently above her pale cheeks. He smoothed his rough, calloused fingers over her jawline, so sharp it may as well be made of ice. Before moving them so they tangled in her long auburn hair, darker now from the brown she'd used to die over the Tully red. He pressed a soft innocent kiss to her pink mouth, ready and waiting.

He remembered another lady, one caked in dirt and mud. Her hair hacked off at the shoulders, choppy and messy like a boy’s. He remembered the indignation in her voice as she’d told him, nay, ordered him “Do not call me Milady.” He remembered the way her bravery shined through her eyes as she challenged the Hound, Thoros, anyone who dared get on her bad side. He remembered the jealousy that coursed through him when she’d said she needed Jaqen H’ghar. The way he’d guffawed loudly at the sight of her in her little green dress, with all the acorns. An oak tree. A nice oak tree.

It is a nice kiss, good even, albeit chaste, but it wasn't from the lady he wanted.

He pulled back and looked sheepishly at the ground, his feet, his hands, anywhere but Sansa’s face. He could almost feel her disappointment floating in the air.

“Did I do something wrong, Ser Gendry?” She moved to touch his arm and he backed away, towards the wall of the corridor they had stolen away to.

“Gendry,” He cleared his throat, cheeks reddening as he met her eyes. “I am no Lord.”

Sansa looked at him strangely, as if he was ill, “You are King Robert’s one true heir.” This is what he’d wanted, Stannis to legitimize him as Robert’s heir, the rightful ruler of the seven kingdoms. He’d wanted to be a Baratheon, to wear the stag sigil proudly and recite the motto “Ours is the Fury” as his own.

It was what he’d wanted, but it was not who he was.

“I am not.” He was Gendry Waters, the stupid bull bastard boy of the King’s Landing.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Margaret Atwood poem "Variations on the Word Love".


End file.
